A blog to keep track of the ongoing work in my first garden

All turfed out

We hired a turf cutter on Friday, thankfully it was the first dry day we’d had in what felt like months.

We cut out 5 veg beds, a flower bed allowing for a grass path between it and an existing bed and widened the edge where we had planted a mixed native hedge last November just to give it a bit more room because I don’t think we’d given it enough grass free space when we planted it.

We then relaid some of the turf on the ground which was a raised gravel area full of bricks and broken pipes just a few weeks ago. Really happy with how it looks now.

I’ve been cutting lengths of turf and piling them upside down in a compost bay so it should hopefully rot down into nice topsoil but there’s so much turf I may have to find somewhere else for a secondary pile.

Elsewhere my peas are finally showing and I can’t wait to eat them straight from the pod, I’m running low on carrots and I think my second sowing seedlings have mostly been munched (by snails?) along with most of my stawberries so I’m a bit dissapointed. The sweetcorn seems to be doing well, there are plenty of tassels so I just give the plants a shake on the way past to help them pollinate and fingers crossed there’ll be corn on the cob to be eaten soon.

I’ve got lots of little tidying jobs to finish and then I’ll mainly be double digging in preparation for next years veg. My back hurts at the very thought of it!

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2 thoughts on “All turfed out”

Hi! Looks like you are off to a good start! A little tip for you if you want it – sow mustard green manure on your veg beds and then dig it in. It will help improve your soil and help to get rid of any wireworm in your soil (they often live in soil under grassy areas for several years and will happily munch their way through your potatoes and roots!).

Hi, I had wondered about green manure but I hadn’t really looked into it but I see there’s plenty of choice for overwintering green manure so maybe I need to get the ground dug over and compost added sooner than I had thought so I can sow some before it’s too late. Also it’ll be nice to see some green over winter rather than just the brown soil.
Thanks very much for the tip, they’re always welcome here!